A careless person scraped up the side of our 83 240 last year. Our insurance covered replacing the front right fender and front passenger door and repainting that side of the car. The local dealer did the work. They have a guy there with 30 years experience and he did a first class job matching the old paint job.
But - the quality of the paint itself and the primer coat just isn't the same. And I'm not sure you can get to the original level of paint quality and craftmanship at a dealer or a paint shop.
The manager of the body shop at the local Mercedes place told us they don't formulate the paint the same way they did ten or fifteen years ago, because the old stuff was great on cards but too hard on the guys in the spray booths. This may or may not be true but I'm sure the guy believed it was true.
Whatever course you decide on you might want to discuss paint and primer quality and the paint type the shop uses before the work is done. Ask how many coats they spray on, and how they prep the car, and what prep they do, if any, inbetween coats.
Different types of paint require different techniques.
Good luck
Harvey Sutlive